


every sun doesn't rise

by nosecoffee



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: (because we don't have enough of them), (no comfort here move along), Alternate Universe, Angst, Body Horror, Comedy, Depression, Gen, Ghosts, Guilt, Humour, Hurt, I seriously need to write some Heidi, Might write more for this but idk, Mild Horror, Some dark comedy, Some humour, Sorry guys, Suicide, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Orchard, This is not happy folks, ambiguous ending, ghost au, mentions of vomit, sticky notes, this is p sad, tw for suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 10:33:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10920051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecoffee/pseuds/nosecoffee
Summary: 'If a boy kills himself in an abandoned orchard, right on the edge of town, and no one finds him, does he ever really die?'"A ghost followed me into my house last night and told me to go."Jared pinches his nose and shakes his head. "This is why you're the guy who'd be the first person to die in a horror movie."





	every sun doesn't rise

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Waving Through A Window' from Dear Evan Hansen
> 
> I'm sorry, my dudes

_If a boy kills himself in an abandoned orchard, right on the edge of town, and no one finds him, does he ever really die?_

Connor asks himself this so many times that he wonders _'did it actually happen?'_

It did happen.

He knows this.

He's not an idiot - he's quite intelligent, actually - and he knows that it was the worst decision he'd ever made.

Connor didn't even leave them a note.

He climbed out of his window, in the middle of the night, and walked out of town, a rope curled around itself slung over his shoulder, a hole in the fence of the Autumn Smiles Apple Orchard his goal.

It's much too elaborate, much too precise.

He had too much time to think about it.

It's the middle of May, and it's been nine months since Connor Murphy went missing.

No one has found his body.

Connor's still there, though, and, at first, he was fucking terrified.

He opened his eyes, only to see himself, right there, in front of his eyes. Very, very dead.

He spent days sobbing over that.

After that, it was an uphill climb.

He's a ghost. He's trapped in the middle of an abandoned orchard, so far from anywhere that no one would dare to look, for fear of becoming lost. He can only a go a certain distance from the spot where he died, before excruciating pain overtakes him and he travels back to his tree.

It is his. He died there, and he stays there, so it doesn't matter to him who carved their initials into its bark, it's his tree.

He doesn't really know, isn't truly sure how far he travelled into the orchard, acres, or inches. All he knows is that there's no hope of anyone finding him, lest he start to smell so bad that it reaches town.

Connor wishes he'd picked an older rope. The one he had picked was fairly new, and, therefore, hadn't snapped or slipped or frayed in the whole time that Connor's been trapped. In the whole time that Connor's been dead.

He tries, every single day, to get a little further away. It's slow going, a long work in progress. He estimates that it'll probably be a whole year since his death before he can even make it to the hole in the fence.

He doesn't know why he's leaving. Maybe he doesn't want to haunt that little bit of the orchard for however much longer he has left on Earth, or maybe he wants someone to find him. Or maybe he just doesn't want to be alone, anymore.

Connor didn't anticipate being so lonely.

If he'd just done it in his bedroom, at home, at least they'd know he was dead. At least he would be in the middle of somewhere, not in the middle of nowhere. At least he wouldn't be alone.

Connor hasn't spoken to anyone in nine months.

Suicide was supposed to stop the emptiness, the loneliness, the silence. It was supposed to be his resolution.

He makes it halfway up the hill to the hole in the fence ten months after his death, in the middle of June.

Connor wonders if they put up missing person signs. Connor wonders how hard they searched, if they even searched at all. Connor wonders if they've given up on him.

He doesn't know why he keeps trying to leave, it's not such a bad place to be trapped in. Sure, sometimes he turns, only to see himself, left there, like broken doll. Other than that, it's perfectly nice. A creek, a nice clearing that turns from an array of colourful wild flowers to long grass and back.

Connor just needs to know if they've moved on.

Connor makes it to the hole in the fence in late July, eleven months to the day.

He's a month earlier than he thought.

There's still a fair way into town that he needs to go, but it feels like an accomplishment. A checkpoint. It's something to be proud of in the purgatory of self loathing that he's trapped himself in.

In August he makes it out to the main road, and the old mill bridge, sees the sign that tells him that it's not far into town. It's like hope, even for a ghost.

A few days after that, Connor sees the first poster. Water damaged, a little ripped.

That's his face, if he remembers correctly (and he might not, since there's no mirror in the orchard, and the only other reference he has is no good after nearly a solid year of neglect. After nearly a year of decay.)

The sign reads his name, date of birth, height, appearance, when he was last seen, and his parents numbers, as well as a plea to contact police should they see him.

Connor doesn't know whether to feel bad or not.

It's September when he makes it town, officially.

Yes, there's Alana Beck's house - built years and years and years ago. It looks like an old-fashioned doll house, with flower pots, and carefully shaped grass, and a swept porch.

The sight makes him more homesick than he thought he could ever be.

Near Halloween he reaches his street.

Two cars in the driveway of a dull looking house at the end of the cul-de-sac. That means both his parents are still there. Zoe's bedroom light is on. So is the dining room light.

Connor thinks he sees silhouette moving faintly through the curtains and turns away, suddenly fearful of what he may find.

He leaves the street and finds himself making his way towards the high school.

Why he would want to go there, he has no idea. Why his weird ghost radius reaches the high school, he could care less about.

A bus hisses to a stop and the doors open with a squeak and the boy who gets off thanks the driver, only stuttering a little, before the bus pulls away, leaving the boy standing under a streetlight, outside the high school.

Connor only vaguely recognises this boy. _Evan Hansen._

Wasn't he the kid who showed up to the science fair in middle school empty handed because he was too scared to tell his mom that he had a project to begin with? At least Connor had done one, no matter if it was crappy, and the bio-carb soda didn't work, and the shitty volcano never erupted, and he got an F.

Wasn't he the kid who'd gotten a full blown concussion in grade eight because the swirly he was receiving was a little too harsh and his head hit the toilet bowl too hard?

Wasn't he the kid who'd fallen out of the tree at Ellison State Park and broken his arm and Connor had been the only person to sign his cast before freaking out over something he shouldn't have freaked out about?

Evan sighs, adjusts his bag strap, and walks across the road, to the small town house there. He fumbles with the keys. The lights are off. No one is home but him.

Connor prays his ghost radius reaches, hopes it isn't too creepy to follow an ex-peer into their house.

Connor finds that he doesn't care at this point. He's been dead for a year, and no one found him.

The house is small, homely, and a little messy. But anything's better than the orchard, at this point.

Evan collapses on the couch, face down, and groans loudly for a full 45 seconds before breaking for breath and rolling off the couch. Connor would almost be impressed if he didn't immediately hit his head on the corner of the coffee table and spend the next five minutes swearing.

Connor picks up a pen from the counter, because apparently that's something he can do, and writes _'whassup, Tree Boy'_ on a Post-It note. He sticks it to the counter where Evan's likely to see it.

It takes Evan a full half hour to find it, after showering and hopping around in his bedroom, getting dressed, and singing _Mr Brightside_ over and over and over again.

He frowns at it and looks around.

"Jared?" He says and Connor snorts. Evan doesn't appear to have heard it. "Jared, this isn't funny."

Connor picks up the pen again, watching Evan's wide eyes zero in on it, and writes _'Kleinman_ _wishes he had rad invisibility powers'._

Evan looks terrified.

"Oh my god, my house is haunted." He whispers. Then, he clears his throat, and speaks in a louder voice. "I've never seen _Poltergeist_ , but whatever they do in _Poltergeist_ to get the ghost to go away, I want you to pretend I did that and you can go away, okay?"

Connor writes _'no'_ on another Post-It. He's decided he'll have Evan be his scapegoat.  
Evan reads it and frowns, leaning back on the pantry door. "Who are you?"

Connor writes, _'Unimportant, to a fault.'_

"I think I'd feel better if you gave me a name." Evan informs him, arms folded. That's a defensive move, an unconscious one, but one nonetheless.

 _'I'm not giving you one. Live with that, Tree Boy.'_ He reads the sticky note with a confused expression.

"What's _'Tree Boy'_ supposed to mean?" Evan demands, in a voice that lacks a stutter. Connor's actually a little impressed, considering that he's speaking to a ghost who could potentially murder him.

_'You broke your arm last year from falling out of a tree.'_

"Oh. You know about that?" Evan's hand moves to his left arm, almost like a habit, and he flushes.

_'We're getting off track. Do you know the old apple orchard?'_

"Um, I think so?" Evan is half standing in Connor's foot. Or, where his foot is to him. Connor's still not clear (pun intended) on how he can become corporeal. Or if he can at all.

_'Do you have a car?'_

"I can take my mom's." Evan freezes and then proceeds to walk backwards into the door. He swears loudly for a full minute as Connor looks on. "What am I doing, negotiating transportation to the abandoned apple orchard in the middle of the night with a ghost?"

_'A good thing.'_

Connor hands the Post-It to Evan who shakes his head at it. "Sure." He has a very skeptical voice on. "How is that a good thing?"

_'Reasons.'_

"That's awfully ominous." He glances at the kitchen window, basically a mirror. "Can we go in the morning?"

_'Are you too scared right now?'_

"All horror movies start at night." Evan huffs, in response. Connor's reminded, oddly, or the speech Evan gave about Dill from _To Kill A Mockingbird_ in the fifth grade, in which Jared interrupted so many times that Evan ended up yelling at him, and then proceeded to scurry out of the classroom without ever finishing. "I can skip work tomorrow to do whatever at the orchard. Just no killing or anything. I would prefer to not die, or kill anyone, or be an accessory to murder."

_'Relax. I'm just trying to make up for a mistake I made. The people I care about deserve it.'_

"What could the orchard have to do with a mistake?" Connor doesn't know whether he wants Evan to know who he is, yet. He settles with something ambiguous.

_'You'll see, Evan Hansen.'_

He seems to take that in stride. Connor's glad.

The night spent sitting on Evan Hansen's couch and waiting for him to wake up takes longer than the year he was trapped at the orchard. He's too aware that he could go snooping through the multitude of DVD's on the shelf by the window, or throw away all the take-away containers, or look at the baby pictures he thinks he saw in the hallway.

He doesn't. He's trying to make up for what he's done, and Connor thinks he might be a little more cursed than before if he takes advantage of Evan's weird trust in him not to fuck up his house while he sleeps.

At 7:19 Evan thumps down the stairs and looks around with weary eyes.

"Mom?" He calls, and when he receives no answer, mumbles something under his breath, and wanders into the kitchen. A minute later, Evan emerges again, with a sticky note on his finger and looks around the living room. "You still here, orchard ghost?"

Connor doesn't quite know how to respond, so he picks up a take-away container from the coffee table and holds it up.

"Okay, cool. Not a weird dream, then." Evan mutters. "When do you wanna go to the orchard?"

How does he say _'right fucking now'_ without actually throwing the container on the ground? He doesn't know, so he throws the container on the ground.

Evan jumps in surprise.

"Okay, um, let me get dressed, and um..." he frowns, "my mom isn't home. How do I get there?"

Connor all-but stomps past Evan and scribbles, _'call Kleinman for a ride or some shit, just get us there'_ on a Post-It, before stomping back past him, and sticking it to Evan's forehead.

"Jared? But he'll want to know why we're going to the orchard. And he probably won't believe me about you being a ghost. I don't even know who you are!"

Connor doesn't respond, and watches Evan wait for a response. When he receives none, Evan huffs in frustration and Connor watches him go upstairs, and emerge a few minutes later dressed with his phone in hand.

"Jared's yelling at me for waking him up, but he's on his way." Evan looks up for a sign that Connor's listening, so Connor picks up an empty MacDonald's cup. Evan's eyes zero on it. "Do you need to get into the car?"

Connor writes on a sticky note quickly. _'Considering that I walked here from the orchard, yes.'_

"You walked? How long did that take?" He holds out the sticky note, and if Connor had a voice (and he doesn't, he's checked) he'd thank him.

_'A year.'_

"A year?" Evan's forehead scrunches in confusion and then smooths out in brief, vague realisation. Connor drops the cup. He's blown his cover. "Wait, what-"

There's a loud honking noise from the street, swiftly followed by a very familiar voice calling, "HANSEN, GET YOUR BUTT OUT HERE, RIGHT NOW." Connor remembers, briefly, the same voice calling Connor's attention, just to insult him, to the amusement of onlookers.

"Jared's here." Evan informs him, and gestures for Connor to follow him out of the house, holding the pad of sticky notes in his hand. Connor takes delight in just sinking through the back door of Jared's beaten up Toyota Corolla and seating himself on the backseat. Jared doesn't speak until Evan's fastened his seatbelt, and they're on the road.

"Why the fuck do you want to go to the goddamn abandoned orchard on the fucking edge of town at ass-crack-o'clock?" He inquires, much too loud for this hour in the morning.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Evan responds, shortly.

"Is this a weird sex thing?" Evan scoffs at this question, but Connor can see that his neck is going a little red. Jared must see it, too, as he plows on. "'Cause if it is, I'm not driving you."

Evan turns in his seat to look at the general area that Connor's sitting in. "Can you kick him or something?"

"Who the fuck are you talking to-" Connor does as he's asked, kicking the back of Jared's chair. The car swerves a little, and the tyres making a loud screeching noise, before Jared rights the car. "OW, WHAT THE FUCK."

"I made a friend." Evan states. Jared pulls over.

"Get out of my fucking car, you weirdo." Jared says, pointing at Evan's door.

"Drive me to the orchard." Evan replies, in a similar tone. Connor's sure that this kid wasn't this snarky when Connor was alive, but a lot can happen in a year, he's found.

"Why?" Jared asks, glancing to the backseat every so often. Connor wishes he had a rubber band to flick at him like Jared did to him during his and Alana's presentation for _Huckleberry Finn_ in tenth grade.

(Maybe Connor has a thing about grudges. Whatever.)

"A ghost followed me into my house last night and told me to go." Evan's too honest in Connor's opinion, but if it gets him by, Connor's not gonna complain.

Jared pinches his nose and shakes his head. "This is why you're the guy who'd be the first person to die in a horror movie."

"Drive me to the orchard and I'll give you a twenty." Evan says.

"Do I have to come with you, like, inside?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Make it thirty, and I'll do it."

"Done." The car starts up again, and they're on the road.

"So," Jared's voice is more conversational now, "who's the ghost, and why does it want you to go to the old abandoned orchard?"

"They won't tell me." Evan admits, and Jared laughs.

"Oh, that's just great." He exclaims, gesticulating wildly with one hand. "That's legitimately the plot to that movie about the forest in Japan where people go to kill themselves. The one with Natalie Dormer. The crap one."

Evan shakes his head. "I didn't see that movie."

"Of course you didn't." Jared scoffs. "You don't like horror movies."

"You didn't see that movie either; your mom wouldn't let you." Evan points out but Jared waves it away, dismissively.

"That's not the point." He says.

"Look," Evan says, and when Jared doesn't break in, he continues, "the ghost said something about making up for a mistake? Something about doing it for their family?"

"You know they might be avenging their family or something, right?" He glances at the backseat again, and then neglects his turning signal as he turns onto the dirt road, just before the turn-off to Á La Mode. "They might just want to kill you, Evan."

Evan turns around in his seat again. "Do you want to kill me?" He asks and Connor rifles through the pile of sticky notes in Evan's lap.

Connor slams the _'no'_ Post-It onto Evan's forehead. The car bumps and rattles as they go over the mill bridge. Connor sees the missing persons sign flap in the wind as they pass. They're almost there.

It doesn't take long for them to pull up outside the fenced off area.

Jared turns off the car and jumps out with a jangle of his car keys.

Evan asks if he needs to open the door for Connor and Jared responds that it's a ghost, and can float through shit.

"So," Jared says, "how do we get in?"

Connor picks up a leaf and waves it around so that they both see it, and then he turns and heads for the hole in the fence.

"Do you really think it's gonna try and kill us?" He hears Evan whisper.

"Definitely." Jared replies, evidently not worried about his volume.

They reach the bottom of the hill in a matter of minutes, and it makes Connor's heart sink that it took him so long to get out.

Connor knows the moment they're about to see. He halts and they stop with him. Jared's foot goes through his leg. "Is this it?" He asks.

Connor takes a sticky note and writes quickly.

"'Are either of you squeamish?'" Evan reads aloud. "Um, kinda."

"Not really." Jared proclaims, proudly. Connor isn't the least bit convinced.

Connor gestures for them to follow him and turns when he's standing beside his body.  
Evan goes green and vomits. Jared's white as a sheet and shaking like a leaf. "Oh, my god." He whispers. "Is that...? That's _Connor..."_

Evan's dry heaving and bracing his hands on the grass. Jared leans against a tree, eyes fixed on the rope. On Connor's body.

He slowly raises his phone up and types with shaking fingers, swallowing every few seconds like he's afraid that he'll throw up. Jared raises it to his ear. "Zoe," he says, his voice breaking. "Zoe, oh my god."

 _"Jared?"_ Connor hears, faintly _. "Are you okay?"_ Her voice, pixilated as it is, makes him want to cry.

"Zoe, we found him." Jared whispers

 _"Who? Who did you find? Who's we?"_ Zoe asks from the other end of the line.

"Evan and I." Jared looks up again and jerks a little. "We...we found Connor."

 _"Really? I've gotta go tell mom! She's gonna be so happy!"_ Jared shakes his head, already speaking. He turns away from the scene.

"No, Zoe..." he says. Evan still hasn't full recovered.

 _"Jared?"_ Zoe's voice changes. _"Oh, no. You mean..."_

"Zoe, he was at the orchard at the whole time. He, uh, we found his body." Evan vomits again. Connor honestly doesn't know what he expected.

 _"...I'm gonna get mom and I'll call dad. Call the police."_ Zoe tells him.

"Okay?"

 _"Okay."_ The beeping tone signifying an ended call sounds and Jared puts his phone back in his pocket before turning back around.

Jared looks over to Connor again, and then proceeds to vomit.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you feel like it, please feel free to leave a comment and/or kudos, and hmu on Tumblr @nose-coffee.
> 
> Again, thanks, sorry for causing you pain.


End file.
